The Right Thing
by Vivienne Grainger
Summary: Another in a series of stories about what befell the Autobots on their way to our planet, along with "The Things With Feathers." A Cybertronian was marooned on a planet the Autobots later visit, and makes some changes in Sideswipe's worldview.


The entire idea for this fic occurred to me over several days as I otherwise wasted time by playing a shoot-the-marbles-off-the-track video game. (No, I'm not very good, thanks for asking, but the Muse was inspired to work by the sight of groups of three-or-more marbles dying an instant death at my hands.)

Another of the "Autobots on the way here" stories, like "The Thing With Feathers." You don't need to have read that one for this one to make sense, though.

Whoever they belong to at this moment in time, Transformers are not mine; I just borrowed 'em long enough to scuff up the finishes (sorry, Sunny).

* * *

Slag it all to the slaggin' Pit, anyway. A slaggin' day like any slaggin' other. A slaggin' mission like any slaggin' other: survey this slaggin' planet for slaggin' energon. Oh, and slaggin' scuff yourself up real good while you're at it, because nobody thought to tell you that these slaggin' offspring of the _Pit_ knee-high squishy greeny-yellow things were covered in slaggin' _spines_, and the slaggin' spines were covered in slaggin' resin. Resin, almost by definition, is sticky.

Sunstreaker was covered in the sticky spines from knee to sole of pede. They contained an aromatic, his sensors told him. _Nice smell?_ they suggested timidly, only to be told firmly by Sunstreaker, _Slag off_.

And the traction-grooves in the bottoms of his pedes were clogged with squishy sticky organic stuff, from this swale and others he had surveyed. Most of that was the resinous spines, slaggin' squished greeny-yellow things serving as a sort of matrix to keep the gunk in place.

His twin was out of sight, although within range of the comlink. The twins were never truly isolated from one another, with their personal link; right now, it was quiescent, and Sunstreaker's mood was such that it would probably remain so.

Sunstreaker didn't know whether it would be better or worse to have Sideswipe around to gripe to. Worse, he suspected. If he were griping about it, it somehow made it more real.

His day, he'd thought, couldn't get any worse, and he yearned toward the wash racks, up there, in orbit behind one of the planet's moons, in the Ark.

And then, out of the blue - except it wasn't blue, on this planet it was yellow - came that slaggin' fragger Starscream.

Sunstreaker opened the comlink, but only static answered him.

Great. Not just Starscream but that other slagger, Soundwave, too.

Sunstreaker knew without looking that at the top of the swale whose nadir he currently occupied lay a cave, just about big enough for a Bot to hide in. But it was too far away, given Starscream's speed. Equally far away, a grove of big - ferny things - high enough to conceal him ... which was more than could be said of where he was right now.

Starscream ripped in from overhead, and Sunstreaker, for whom the line of programming that read "Run If" was severely deficient anyway, stood his ground as two lines of fire converged on him. He waited until Starscream was nearly overhead, took aim at the vulnerable wings, and fired twice, rolling away as Starscream shrieked and spun out of the strafing run.

The yellow Autobot didn't quite get clear. He felt the trail of bullets tear the plating in a diagonal up his left leg, across the knee, halfway up his thigh.

Primus slaggin' Pit of a day, anyway! He attempted to get up, fell, saw out of the corner of his eye another Bot running (limping - had the Con hit him too?) for him from the direction of the cave, that one reached him fast and took his rifle from him, sighted Starscream, had the patience to allow the sighting mechanism to kick in, and then hit Starscream four times before taking a round in the chest himself.

Starscream, shrieking, left for good.

The round felled the other Cybertronian close to but not on top of Sunstreaker.

"Oh, slag," said the green-and-gray one, rolling to one side. "Primus, that _hurt_. You okay?" he said to Sunstreaker. The voice was raspy and rusty.

"No. Who're you?" Sunstreaker said, because that chest, hole blown neatly into one side of it, was bare of either Autobot or Decepticon insignia.

"Veer," said the other shortly. "Planetary scout. Got stranded here. Can you stand up?"

He offered his hand to Sunny, pulled him up. Got Sunny's left arm around his shoulder. Started off toward the cave, limping on his own left leg.

"You get hurt more than the blow to the chest?" Sunny said.

"Long time ago," Veer said, limping. "Never healed right."

They struggled on through Sunstreaker's knee-high piny squishy nightmare, and stumbled into the cave. Veer sat Sunny down along one wall, far enough inside to be invisible. Once he was down, Sunny's comlink chirped, and he punched it to reply. "Sunstreaker."

"Sunny ... you okay? I heard Starscream bitching his way home."

"No. I got hit."

"You need a stretcher?"

"No, just pick-up. Another bot may be coming with me. Out." He broke the connection. "You want off this world, Veer?"

"I'd get down on my knees and beg to go with you," Veer said simply.

* * *

Ratchet himself came to the cave to see to Sunny, grousing all the while; then he looked at Veer.

"How in slag did you come to be here, anyway?" he asked, while patching the considerable hole in Veer's chestplate.

"It was common knowledge in the scientific community that Cybertron's energon sources were being depleted quite rapidly about fifty vorn before the official announcement was made," Veer said. "Ouch. - My clan decided that it would send its best explorers and scientists out to look at other planets, see if any were good sources. I felt it was - the right thing to do, to volunteer. This was our fifth planet, first one that had any energon at all."

"_Our_ fifth planet," Ratchet said, carefully turning off another set of sensors.

"Yeah. One scientist, that's me, one medium-weight combat type in each ship. We were coming in for our landing when the ship got holed by a meteorite. It went straight through my partner's spark casing, then into the computer, and took out main memory. I got my ship down to a crash landing, was thrown out, and another meteorite went right through the cable lets you point your pedes down - the big one at the back of the leg."

"Hamstrung you," Ratchet said.

"Yeah. I couldn't reach it to fix it, so I relearned how to walk and even how to run, eventually."

"Explains the differing development in your legs," the medic said. "When we get back to the ship, I'll fix it for you. We'll get you a history download too; a lot's happened since you've been here."

"Everywhere but here," Veer said. "If we could stop by my ship, you might be able to salvage some stuff, and all my data."

* * *

However:

"Primus," Veer whispered.

There was a mile-wide puddle of cooling molten metal in a swale not much different than the one Sunny had been stomping through.

Except that one hadn't been where Veer's ship had made its last landing.

Sunny, curious, got out to walk over to the pool, Sideswipe following. The red mech stooped to put his hand down toward the metal pool. "Still hot."

"Yeah. The Cons haven't been gone long."

Veer bent forward to put his face in his hands.

"I'm sorry," Ratchet said. He hadn't transformed, and now he hit his horn twice; the twins returned, climbing into the back. "If the Cons were here, we don't know where else they might be," Ratchet said. "I vote to get the slag back."

"Perfect ending to a perfect slaggin' day," Sunstreaker snarked, and the rest of the drive back to their shuttle was very silent indeed.

* * *

When Veer came out of a fourteen-groon recharge, Ratchet was standing by his med bay berth with a cup of energon.

"Sit up slowly," the medic said. "Here."

"Thanks," Veer murmured, and gratefully applied the energon where it would do the most good.

"I've got good news and bad news," Ratchet said. "Which one first?"

"The bad," Veer said, making eye contact. His eyes were green. Not a Con, not a Bot, just an ordinary Cybertronian pitched into the middle of a war none of them wanted, Ratchet thought.

"Comes in two parts. I don't have the materials to repair your leg."

"Okay," said Veer, accepting that. "Part two?"

"Part two is that the velocity of the meteorite that struck you has compromised the structural integrity of your leg. It's going to have to be replaced. I can give you an upgrade to both legs at the same time."

Veer nodded. "Thank you. And what can I do to earn that? It would only be right. I'm a nonpaying passenger, otherwise."

Ratchet began to like his patient at that point. "Our Prime will discuss it with you."

"And the good news?"

"I was able to repair some stuff you probably didn't even know was degrading."

Veer paused to finish his energon. "It's true I feel better than I have in a long time. Thank you."

Ratchet actually _smiled_; it was the second time he'd heard those magic words in a vorn or two, both times from this patient. "You're welcome. You feel up to meeting the Prime now?"

"Yes. –Could I have some more energon?"

"Doctor's orders," said Ratchet, and fetched him a second and then a third cup.

* * *

By the time Optimus Prime arrived at the med bay, though, Veer was fading fast.

"I'll make it quick," Optimus said. "Would you be willing to work your passage?"

"I'd hoped to; it would be only right," Veer said, and gave a prodigious yawn. "Sorry. I'm not sure what I can contribute on a warship. I was a scientist back home. Exobiology."

"We can give you some minor upgrades that will serve both our purposes," Optimus said. "But again, the rest of this conversation can wait." He paused, and Ratchet thought fleetingly that he rarely saw his Prime at a loss for words. But Optimus said smoothly, "At any rate, welcome aboard, Veer."

Veer's first assignment, post-recovery, was to clean the surviving laboratory glassware for both Wheeljack (post-boom) and Perceptor (no boom, but a lot of stains).

Sunstreaker, to his disgust, was relegated to the injured list, but not required to stay in the med bay. When that happened to him, which it did with a frequency substantially lower than it did to Sideswipe, he became the Ark's combat instructor.

"So you're going to teach Veer to shoot?" Wheeljack said one morning, sitting down beside him with a cup of energon in hand.

Sunstreaker finished his own, lowered the cup. "First I've heard of it," he said. "I guess 'Hide'll tell me later, unless Ratchet clears me for duty."

"That likely?"

"No. I'm still limping."

Wheeljack grimaced in sympathy. "Slagging Starscream," he said.

Sunstreaker nodded, and rose to leave.

It didn't occur to Sunny until later that day that he would have to watch himself: he'd had a polite conversation with somebody. People'd be bothering him day and night unless he upped his nasty again.

* * *

The rumor mill was correct: Sunstreaker got his marching orders, and went to find Veer.

Veer was waiting for him in the shooting gallery. Sunstreaker stopped out of perception range, and watched the new guy shoot for a while.

Good, but kinda pedantic, taking overly-careful aim to shoot. Sunstreaker called up the scores, and was impressed at the accuracy, depressed by the speed.

Still: how you got to speed was by practicing for accuracy. Veer's scores had improved by 25% in the two cycles he had been assigned shooting times.

So: could be better, could be worse.

"Morning," Sunstreaker said at a distance, moving toward Veer. (It's never wise to startle an inexperienced shooter.)

"Morning," Veer said. He put the rifle on safety, and stood leaning on it.

"I've been watching you shoot," Sunstreaker said. "Why don't you tell me what you know needs improvement."

Veer paused. "I guess," he said finally, "I'd like to be able to target and aim faster. It's like there's this klik where I need to be _sure_ where that bullet's going, you know? And I don't know how to get around that."

"Probably an upgrade will take care of most of it, but knowing where your ammo's headed is always a good thing. You don't want to shoot one of us because we're beyond the mech you missed. —I see you haven't had any actual instruction, so you've just been going through the simulations?"

"As far as Level Eighteen, yeah."

Level Eighteen was a killer. It had taken Sunstreaker four months to get through it, at the beginning of his Autobot training, and Sideswipe three and a half, longer than any other level; but it was designed that way. If you couldn't survive Simulation Level Eighteen, you would do nothing more in battle than get yourself killed, and likely your comrades too. So Sunstreaker asked, "You solved Level Eighteen yet?"

"Just once. It was kinda a fluke."

Sunstreaker winced. "Don't say that. You solved it, you solved it."

"But I didn't really, so it's only right to say so."

"Okay," the yellow mech said, making nothing of it. "I want you to shoot for me, starting at Level One. And let's sit down. My leg hurts. I don't know if yours does."

"All the time," Veer said casually, making nothing of it. He turned and brought the stools along the back wall forward, limping a bit to do so. They sat, and the console adjusted to the shooter's new position.

Veer entered his code, and the little targets began their snakey way around the screen.

He didn't waste his shots, Sunstreaker noted. In the simulation, three similar adjacent targets were necessary for a kill; the rifle shot varicolored ammo, and the shooter's challenge was to match target color to ammo.

Veer was actually quite good at it, using his ammo to take out long chains of targets. It wasn't long before, at the lowest levels, he was eliminating targets as soon as they came on-screen. He did miss a few shots, and Sunstreaker saw him put an odd-colored round into a pair of targets; he realized the second time it happened that Veer was seeing the HUD for the round in the chamber, not the round in the barrel.

Easily fixed with sufficient practice. Unlike the speed thing, which was looking to be chronic and incurable. He'd had the mythical ten thousand joor of practice; why wasn't he any better?

When the first dual-input targets came up, Veer took his time and made his shots count. He cleared the first screen with ease.

The faster single-input screens were no great challenge for him; the third double-input screen, the infamous Level Eighteen, "killed" him. He turned to face Sunny, trepidation written across his faceplates.

"Not bad," Sunny said, which surely went down in Primus' Book of Lies Told So You Don't Hurt Somebody's Feelings. "There's a couple of things I'm going to work with you on, but you've got it pretty well down on your own."

"Really? I was never sure I was doing it right. And that little pause ..." He shrugged.

"It'll go away. Ratchet'll help you with it," Sunny said.

* * *

"So yeah," Sunstreaker said to Optimus, Ratchet, Jazz, Prowl, and Ironhide, "I think he'll eventually make a good rifleman, once we get him some updates."

Ratchet looked down at his own hands, and said, "There's a bit of a problem with that. When I looked back through his logs, he was offlined twice by low energy levels."

"How did he online again?" asked Prowl. It was a valid question; once offlined by low energy, a mech stood a good chance of doing what humans called "starving to death."

"He has self-deploying solar collectors. There's a lot of vulcanism on the planet, Perceptor tells me," said Ratchet, "and that creates ash clouds. He couldn't get enough sunlight to function. Once he was down for a hundred kilovorn, once for twice that long. When I looked up his records, I found that he's your senior by a good sixty vorn, Ironhide, and I can do only limited things for him. The technology of spark-casing and memory architecture moved on shortly after he left Cybertron. I don't have anything that's compatible with his systems on board."

"So," Optimus Prime said thoughtfully, "Veer's a good lab assistant, both Perceptor and Wheeljack have said so, and he is intelligent in ways we don't expect. But an effective combatant, probably not."

"Probably not," Ratchet agreed. "I can in fact do some physical upgrades; he won't have to limp forever. But the processor upgrades, no, can't help him there."

"He's a very good chemist, though," Sunstreaker added, right before he realized he shouldn't have said that ... what would he blab next, the location of the highgrade brewing center?

Both Jazz and his Prime cast him amused looks. Ironhide glowered hypocritically: _no one_ on the Ark was known to enjoy a good overcharge as much as the Prime's bodyguard.

"That's good to know as well," Optimus said levelly. "I'll expect to notice the difference in the next batch of high-grade. Thank you, Sunstreaker."

* * *

Sideswipe came off-shift to find that his brother had sampled the wares extensively. "What's up?" he said, taking a cube down from the shelves in their kitchen, and emptying the bottle, which half-filled his glass.

He frowned. It had been full last night, one of their new batch.

"Veer. I've been assigned to teach Veer to shoot."

"So ..."

"So he's a scientist. Do you know what that means? It means that he's the world's most Primus-awful slowpoke at aiming. Got to be sure where the bullet goes, he says. Takes him four point two _vorn_ to do that." Sunstreaker, whom his brother thought was pretty sloshed all ready, knocked back half a cube of highgrade. "Then I have to go to a meeting with the brass, and do you know what Ratchet said? There's no way to upgrade his processor! He _can't_ shoot any faster! He never will! And _I'm_ going to go down as the one who failed to teach him!"

This was serious. Sideswipe went to get another bottle.

* * *

A small planet with a lot of energon under its surface was the next point of contact with the Cons.

A good time was not had by anyone involved.

"Shoot to kill but avoid hitting the natives," Optimus said firmly. "At all costs."

They understood, really they did, but they also got their afts handed to them. Too many Cons, too few Bots ... and the casualty lists further unbalanced the numbers.

Sunstreaker, still on the disability lists, was approached by Veer the second morning of the conflict. "Hey, professor," he said to the twin.

Sunstreaker bit down on the irritation this title caused him, particularly as both Wheeljack and Perceptor smirked at him from their table. "Veer. What do you want?"

Veer's eyes flashed at Sunny's tone. "I need to take the Level Eighteen test."

"Again?"

"I consistently make it to Level Twenty-four. Have for the last decacycle."

It was his right; he could take the test any time, as many times, as necessary. Sunstreaker was his instructor, and could not deny him the test.

It wasn't even a bad time for it. Sideswipe was on his way back to the Ark, hale and hearty for a change; their twin bond was unruffled.

"Let's get to it," Sunstreaker said. "You had energon yet?"

* * *

Veer polished off the last of the targets. Numbers spun, then threw up the total score: Accuracy, 97.8%; speed, 76.8%.

Passing rate was 90/75.

"Congratulations," Sideswipe said. "I'll tell Ironhide."

* * *

"A what?" said Veer.

Ironhide said calmly, "A mission. I want to send you down there to do some sniper work. Dedicated gunners don't get accuracy marks over 95%. And you'll find that it's easier when you don't have to match the color to the target, just shoot them with anything handy."

"Yes sir," said Veer, and swallowed hard.

"You'll be going with him," Ironhide said to Sunstreaker.

* * *

"They make you come with because they still don't trust me?" Veer said to Sunstreaker.

They were patiently climbing a hill while remaining under tree cover. Not that that would do much if the Cons decided to scan it with sensors, but maybe staying out of sight would keep them from using the sensors in the first place.

Maybe.

Sunny shrugged. "Probably," he said.

Sunstreaker had one last nerve, and this place was getting on it. He was climbing through more stuff like that crap he'd gotten all gunked up with on Veer's planet, except that the squishy things here had more spines than squish, so his finish was getting scratched, what squishy stuff there was was clogging up his pedes again, and he _hated_ all of that. To top it all off, the gravity here was higher than the Ark's, which made him heavier, and that dragged on his lamed leg.

He almost hated Veer for being the proximate cause of his misery. Almost. Sunstreaker, for all his quirks, was a just mech, and he knew that his situation was not of Veer's own making.

He couldn't hate his Prime, and all things considered he rather respected Ironhide, rusted-out old grouch that he was; almost as bad as Ratchet.

So, slag it, he was going to hate this Pit of a planet. With all his spark.

That meant that Sides had to hate it too. He'd twist an arm, Sunstreaker would, scuff his finish even more if needed, to get the other half of their spark involved. He hated this planet _that_ much.

Sunstreaker's weapons on this mission were an upgrade, a modification, and thus he did not have to think about it to use them accurately; they were hardwired. Veer's were not, had to be aimed, and were subspaced now. Both, though, were designed to offline a mech ... maybe permanently, maybe not, depending on the hit.

Sunstreaker had shown Veer some tapes of combat. He had carefully chosen three short snippets which showed mechs Veer had become acquainted with falling to Cons, and mixed them into a longer and progressively more graphic depiction of frontline war. He knew of nothing else to convince the newcomer of the seriousness of what they were about to do.

Veer, to his credit in Sunstreaker's eyes, hadn't purged his tanks. He had gone white and silent.

But then he wasn't programmed to be a frontliner, and could never know the feeling of proving yourself superior to an enemy in combat _at the cost of that enemy's life_. Yes, you wanted to purge your tanks afterward, at least the first couple of times: in Sunstreaker's and Sideswipe's cases, that had been after their first death matches in the gladiatorial arenas. Long ago, and far away.

But then, you got used to it, or resigned to it, or inured to it; anyway, you went out and did the best you could to keep your comrades (or bonded or other half of your slaggin' spark) safe, by killing.

And once you were used to it? Once that happened, there was no feeling in the entire universe like that of having your enemy's life leave your enemy's body under your hands, to Sunstreaker's certain knowledge.

And Veer couldn't have that for compensation. He would, was willing to, contribute what talent he had: only right, he said. Sunstreaker, not normally the most tolerant of mechs, found himself unwilling to think less of the scientist for it.

This planet, however, he was quite willing to think the absolute minimum of, and then curse it with all of his being. Fraggin' Pit of a place, anyway.

His leg ached by the time they got to the top of the hill. The trees there were old, had crowned out, presenting a flatter top than the young growth the two had limped through on the way up. The old trees' branches began a long way off the ground; both mechs could easily stand upright to shoot.

But Sunstreaker brought a small three-legged stool out of subspace, and set it in front of the man-height thorny brush that plagued, in Sunstreaker's view, the area. It provided good visual cover, though.

They could see the whole of the valley sprawled out below them, the ground waving into glens and hillocks, most of it covered with struggling red- and blue-eyed figures.

"Dang!" said Veer (or the Cybertronian equivalent thereto, which sounded as if someone threw cheap aluminum cookware down a flight of concrete stairs), as he caught sight of Sunny's seat. "Wish I'd thought of that."

Sunstreaker grunted. "Leg still hurt?"

"All the time."

"Find some fallen wood," the twin said. "Make an X on the ground. Lay your rifle muzzle across it. Then you can lie down to fire."

Veer did this thing, utilizing foot-across fallen stumps. The X was a little drunken, but solid. He lay on his belly, and sighted down to the faraway combat.

Sunstreaker had already gotten three good hits in, one a kill shot. Veer, a slower marksman, took out two Cons and offlined a third, right through the spark casing, by the time Sunny had his tenth kill.

It was slow work, painstaking. They couldn't lay down automatic fire for fear of hitting other Autobots, so they took their time, occasionally pointing out an ally beleaguered by multiple enemies, and evening out the odds a bit, all the while taking single shots. The hesitation between shots kept the Cons from targeting them, so they were relatively safe on the top of their mountain.

Veer got almost used to it by the time the battle ended. Almost inured. Without touching his enemy, he couldn't feel the spark leave, though he could see them fall ... but watching was enough. A dead mech fell bonelessly, unlike a wounded one.

Ten groon after it started for them it was over, though it had lasted longer for the ground-pounders. Fifty-two kill shots, seeing the energy race through a spark casing ... Veer knew he could never be a ground-pounder, even if upgrades magically became possible. What would it feel like to know the enemy's death at your touch? He did not ask this question of Sunstreaker, whom he knew could tell him.

The Decepticons simply disengaged, quite suddenly and without warning, all at once. Sideswipe and Ironhide followed them as they ebbed in a wave over one hill, two, three, five ... the tide of scum flowed down a valley and out of sight, its Command Trine above it. Ironhide and Sideswipe returned from the country of I'm Not Done Yet. It was finished.

Veer sighed, and subspaced his rifle. Sunny subspaced his seating arrangements, and without speaking they began the trudge back down the hill to pick-up point.

* * *

"He's good," Sunstreaker said. "Slower; that can't be helped without an upgrade. But he's determined. He doesn't lose focus. He took the kill shots."

"A shame, nonetheless," said Optimus Prime, "to use a mech designed for something else to kill."

Sunstreaker didn't shrug. He had too much respect for his Prime to do so. Having nothing to say, he said nothing.

Prowl said quietly, "You noticed no hesitation, no regret, no overlong periods of waiting?"

"I did not. Although my attention was divided."

Ironhide, fellow frontliner, nodded. Sunstreaker had had his own job to do.

Optimus and Prowl exchanged a glance, and quite likely a data package. Sunstreaker was almost too tired to care, and his leg ached abominably.

"All right," Optimus said. "Have you seen Ratchet?"

"No, Optimus. I was asked to report here immediately."

Without even time to hit the washracks, Optimus knew, as a faint odor of pine tickled the olfactory receptors, and there were bits of brush stuck in some of the mech's joints.

"See Ratchet, then refuel and recharge once you've cleaned up," Optimus said. "When you wake, report to Prowl with Veer."

* * *

"I think we got you a good spot."

Sunstreaker and Veer stepped out of their transport, who transformed and took up lookout duty.

Another mountaintop. This one was bald of trees, but not of covering brush.

"I think so too," Sunstreaker agreed. Prowl grinned at him as Veer nodded.

One of the scientist's best qualities, in Sunstreaker's eyes, was his habitual taciturnity. Veer didn't talk unless he had something to say.

Prowl said, "Your job is to disarm the trains."

It proved to be a lot like the training sessions on computer. They were again overlooking a valley, but this one had been carved by the Decepticreeps into flat surfaces converging on the mouth of a mine; the lowest surface, which led into the mine itself, was scarred with train tracks.

The tracks ran straight across below them, then to their right began a series of meander loops to climb the hills. The angles of fire would be acute, but not troublesome.

This time, both mechs had their seats and muzzle-props out of subspace before the other two left; they sighted in along the tracks, and were ready when the first trains crept from the adit.

Two engines, with shadowy figures moving inside the cabs, were followed by three open ore carts; a car full of guards; two more ore carts; another guard car; a tanker; another guard car; and an irregularly-alternating series of ore, guard, and tanker cars, followed by two final ore carts and two more engines.

Veer said, "Sunstreaker, hold off a minute on shooting. I want to scan something; I think we might be able to do a bit of sabotage here."

"Make it quick."

"Yeah." It was nevertheless two kliks later that Veer said, "You've got a com link to Prowl, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Prowl's reaction to Veer's proposal could best be described as, "Pit yeah." He linked in Perceptor to listen to how the older scientist thought it might be done, got a thoughtful nod from Perceptor, and put it into motion.

The two snipers took out the guard Cons. The Autobots took possession of the tanker-car contents for themselves, and then Veer helped Perceptor to "load" (their word) two of the ore cars with a little bit of extra juice. The other cars' contents were dumped.

By the time the Autobots got through, the place looked as if one of the tankers had blown up, taking out the adjacent cars and killing the Cons, and the survivors unfortunately had mostly been burned quite badly in the resulting fire ... the ore, though thrown from its cars through the application of a little explosive this'n'that to the axles, could be recovered.

The remaining tankers had, unfortunately, split their seams in tumbling off the tracks, and the energon contained in them had soaked back into the earth. Or enough of it had been spilled to make it seem so, anyway.

The Cons were observed to recover the ore. They were also seen to take it with them when they left ... they were not seen to blow their smelter all to slag, but the chemical fog they created by doing so left no doubt that they'd been hiding in the same system as the Ark, next planet out, when it happened.

Sideswipe was in the observation lounge at the time. He grinned, and threw down his cards. "Will you look at that!" he said.

It was a glowing green ball of expanding plasma that had caught his attention. Perceptor, who had been losing to him even more badly than he had been losing to Wheeljack, glanced up and laid down his own cards. "It worked," he said quietly. "Congratulations, Veer."

"Thanks." The scientist, however, looked troubled. "I'm not sure it was the right thing to do."

Sideswipe grinned at him, said, "Sure it was," and said to Sunstreaker, sitting some way away. "Hey Sunny! See what you guys did?" He picked up his cards without waiting for Sunstreaker's reaction.

* * *

"You're going to _what?_" said Sideswipe.

"Seduce Veer," Sunstreaker said calmly, folding his polishing cloths. "I've wanted to ever since he found a way to blow up that tanker train."

Sideswipe eyed his twin. "Well, thank you for telling me, but _why?_"

"Why am I doing this, or why did I tell you?"

"Both. I mean, he's a nice guy, plays a fairly good game of _goolholtz_, but really ..."

Sunstreaker shrugged. "The longer we shoot together, the less I mind about the way he looks."

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker both looked like the mech you'd find on the centerfold pages of a certain class of magazine. Veer ... didn't. Veer looked like a mild-mannered shop teacher, lacking only horn-rimmed glasses and a pocket protector. And, oh yeah, that whole _human body_ thing.

"He's a geek. You know that, right?"

"Yep."

"Is it because Ratchet won't clear you for duty? You won't limp like Veer does forever, you know."

"I know."

"So Sunny ... _why?_"

"Why not? He's a nice guy, he's got a sense of right and wrong, unlike _some_ mechs I know -" Sideswipe grinned - "and I like him. End of story." Sunny finished his folding, subspaced the cloths. "I thought I'd see if you wanted to join us, but if all you can find to say is, 'I wonder why my brother wants to 'face with you,' then don't bother."

"You know I wouldn't do that."

"I _hope_ you won't do that, but you remember that mech I wanted to 'face with a long time ago, when we weren't much more than kids, and you ran your big mouth? Not only did he pound the crap out of both of us that time, he beat me up twice more when he saw me after that. You, my brother, have a knack for creating enemies in the sack. I don't want to have my shooting partner become one of them."

Sideswipe, hurt, shrugged. "Good luck," he said.

* * *

"How'd it go with Veer?"

"He turned me down."

"He _turned you down_?"

"Flat. He's already 'facing with Ratchet, Perceptor, and Wheeljack."

"Ratchet, Perceptor, and Wheeljack." Sideswipe shook his head. "What _is_ it about that guy? I may have to try for him myself, just to see what's so fascinating about him."

* * *

It took some cycles before all the aspects were right, and Sideswipe found Veer sufficiently alone to embark upon that delicate negotiation called "seduction." He was quite pleased with his progress right up until Veer declined a proffered embrace and said, "Gee, thanks, Sideswipe. I'm really flattered. But with Perceptor, Ratchet, Ironhide, and Wheeljack, I've about got my hands full."

"_Ironhide?_ He nailed _Ironhide_? Oh, this is just ridiculous."

Sideswipe smirked. "Well, do you have any other ideas? Otherwise, it's just you and me tonight. We haven't done that for a couple of decavorn at least."

Sunstreaker said slowly, "I've heard of worse."

* * *

Turned out, he hadn't.

* * *

Veer was present in the halls when Ransack was brought in shackled, and taken to the cells; Sideswipe was carried in right behind him, in Sunstreaker's arms. Veer was occupied himself as messenger at the time, and continued with this task, while Prowl's quiet comment trailed the Con down the halls: "It's really too bad we can't hack his systems. A Con in his position knows a lot about the Nemesis. We don't have an accurate map yet."

The Ark was, at the time, in a quiet orbit around a twin-planet system that had enough dust and crud beyond their orbit to serve as a nice little hidey-hole ... the dust hid them from the Cons' sensors, and the crud made it hard for the Cons to come in without knocking, so to speak. Where the Nemesis was, out beyond the fog of their temporary home, was anybody's guess.

Ransack was kept in shackles, as his talent for sending a disabling electromagnetic pulse was itself disrupted by that simple precaution. Perceptor, Veer, Ratchet, and Wheeljack all could have explained the science behind this, but they found no one but themselves interested. And they already knew.

On the fourth day of his captivity, as Veer brought him his daily ration of energon, the Con said as he had every day, "Useless git."

Veer, whose orders specifically forbade him to speak to the Con, held out the cube for Ransack to grasp with his shackled hands. The other mech took it, tilted his head to look up at the taller Autobot, and said with quiet viciousness, "Lamed and useless. You never can help yer precious cause, yer precious Prime. You can't do nothing. Them guys been interrogatin' me, they can't do nothin' either. Useless buncha gits, all ya."

Veer simply left, returning to Wheeljack's lab, where he returned to cleaning glassware. But the inventor intercepted him. "Veer, would you take this to Prowl?" He thrust a packet of papers toward the other Bot, and Veer accepted them with a simple, "Certainly," and limped off on his errand without reading them; he was careful never to do so.

He knocked at the door of Prowl's office, but heard no reply; then Prowl's quiet voice preceded him around the corridor. "We're about ready to leave. If I can't get the information we need from Ransack soon, he'll have to be traded back to the Cons."

"I can't do much more and stay within Optimus' parameters," Mirage replied. "If he weren't so damned stringent about the 'Autobot way,' I could hack Ransack without -"

"Veer?" said Prowl, cutting off Jazz as he rounded the corner.

* * *

It was very late at night, or very very early in the morning. Veer, who within two weeks of coming to the Ark had been given unlimited access to both Wheeljack's and Perceptor's labs (or more accurately Wheeljack's and Perceptor's dirty lab glassware), quietly let himself into Wheeljack's lab. He did the usual clean-up, washing all but a very few of glassware items soiled by scientific endeavor. Then he set a program he had written in his off-hours to do iterations and report its results to him.

Some time later, he finished washing the glassware, returned to his quarters, and went to sleep.

* * *

"The slag?" said Prowl the next morning, as he thwacked the enter key, and the terminal on his desk "woke up."

"What?" said Jazz, accompanied by Mirage, in the office for their morning briefing. Today, both of them were sure it was going to be all about Ransack ...

"A data packet came in overnight. It's the plan of the _Nemesis_."

"Is it authentic?" Jazz, Mirage following, came around the desk, to look into the monitor.

"It's got a disabled Con chop at the bottom of each screen," Prowl said, stunned. "And it came from Ransack." He glared at the two mechs. "You had orders not to hack him," he said.

Jazz backed away, hands in the air. "I haven't. Swear."

Mirage, less theatrical, simply shook his head. "That plan is accurate, so far as I know. But I haven't hacked him either. I talked to Optimus about it, but he says he can't allow anyone under his command to hack another mech or femme."

"Who did this, then?"

Jazz, practical, said, "Let's go look at th' mech in question. If Ransack's been hacked, we'll be able to tell. If they ain't been too covert, maybe he can tell us who."

What they found in the brig was an empty cell, and a guard who told them that Ratchet had been summoned to the patient, who was unresponsive when brought his morning energon.

"Who brought it?" Prowl said, with his usual lack of urgency.

"Veer. Same as every morning. He went in, came right back out, said Ransack was unconscious in his cell. I got backup, we couldn't wake him, we called Ratchet."

"Prisoner's in med bay, then?"

"Yessir."

Med bay held, predictably, Ratchet, and less predictably, Veer, along with Ransack, who was still unconscious, and Sideswipe, who was in deep recharge. Veer was sweeping the floor away from Ratchet and his newer patient.

Ratchet glowered at them from above the shackled form. "I thought Optimus was very clear that you were not to hack him," he said, narrowed optics darting among Prowl, Jazz, and Mirage.

"None of us did," Jazz said. "Prowl got a packet of hacked data overnight."

"Is that so," Ratchet said, straightening. "Well, let me tell you something. Whoever did this had enough skill to use a drive key. Once that was in and turned, which apparently happened without violence, Ransack was disabled. He shows no signs of physical abuse. That key turned him into nothing more than a server for the information they were looking for. They could have wiped his mind if they'd wanted."

A small silence followed, in which the rhythmic swish, swish of Veer's broom provided the only noise in the room.

"Is that so?" Prowl said levelly. "It wasn't Sunstreaker, then. He'd have pounded the mech senseless."

"He had the most immediate motive, I'll grant you that," Ratchet said, glancing at his red patient. "But others have suffered at Ransack's hands. I can get you a list."

"Some time today, if you could," Prowl said.

* * *

Optimus Prime sat like a stone while his 2IC and 3IC, and the 3IC's henchman, laid out the story of Ransack's adventures. Ironhide listened quietly as well.

When Prowl stopped speaking, the Prime came right to the point. "Someone has disobeyed my explicit orders," the Prime said, "and behaved in a manner much contradictory to the Autobot way."

"What will their punishment be, when we catch them?" Prowl said.

Optimus sat with his head tilted slightly downward, looking through the tabletop at whatever was inside his processors at that moment. "I don't know," he said eventually, slowly raising his head. He met all four of the others' eyes, one by one. "I am tempted to assign brig time, if not an extended stretch in the hole; I am tempted to assign the most degrading duties I can think of. I am tempted to do nothing, not even try to find this mech. Because if someone here is willing to do what I cannot countenance ... perhaps we need that mech's help and support more than ever."

"I have yet to view the access tapes for last night," Prowl said. "Perhaps I can narrow the list of suspects that way. And I believe we must speak with Sunstreaker, as Ransack injured Sideswipe quite badly. He's still under Ratchet's care."

"Very well," said the Prime. "Let me know where we are at the end of the day, will you? I've got to make a decision regarding the Con by tomorrow. We're almost ready to leave the system, and I don't particularly want to bring him along for the ride."

* * *

"I'm afraid," Veer said that evening, pouring Ironhide and himself two hefty cubes of highgrade, "that I invited you here tonight under false pretenses."

"Nothin' false about this stuff," the old Autobot said, raising his cube so that it caught the light.

Veer smiled at him, sampled his own. "No, it's one of Sideswipe's better efforts," he said. "Still, it's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

"If you wanted to ask if I'd spend the night with you again, I will, but it's against my better judgment. Last time you about gave me a heart attack."

Veer smiled again. Ironhide had been one of the better lovers he'd ever experienced, age granting experience and some form of wisdom with it, and he knew he wouldn't turn him down if the older mech offered. Which, once he finished with what he had to say tonight ... wasn't likely.

"Ironhide, I'm the one who hacked Ransack."

The black Bot paused with his glass halfway to his mouth. "_You_? _You_ hacked Ransack?" Ironhide set his highgrade down, picked it up, set it down, picked it up, and drank a good third of it before slamming the cube onto the table. "Why? Why did you pull such a slagging stupid move?"

Veer matched him hit for hit. "If I hadn't, who would have?"

"Mirage, probably. But why did you?"

"I thought from things that I overheard that Optimus had forbidden anyone under his command to hack a Decepticon. Technically, I'm not under his command."

A smile crept glacially across Ironhide's face. "So you ain't. Still, he's the boss, and he ain't big on disobedience."

* * *

Ironhide insisted that Veer come with him in the morning to Optimus Prime's office.

The old mech rapped, and the door slid aside.

Inside, Optimus sat across the desk from Mirage and Prowl, both of whom had had a very busy yesterday, full of alarums and excursions. As a result of their endeavors, they had lists of suspects, lists of computers active during the period during which Ransack's internal chronometers had been offlined, lists of Autobots injured by Ransack, and a summary of the activity shown by surveillance tapes recorded in the brig during that offlined period.

The information offered by these items could be summed up in one word: bupkis.

"Ironhide?" Optimus said. "Veer?"

"Sir," Veer said.

Ironhide said, "Please turn off your recording devices."

Three mechs stared at him. Then various hands sent various commands.

"Veer is the one who hacked Ransack, Optimus."

All three of the mechs seated around Optimus' desk switched their focus to the scientist. "Veer, is this true?" Optimus finally said.

"Yes, Optimus."

"Why?"

"Because," the lame Cybertronian said carefully, "it had to be done, and no one under your command could do so without defying you. But I am not under your command."

Jazz and Mirage smiled. Prowl might have, if the observer squinted hard and knew him well.

"I ... see." Optimus leaned back in his chair, and folded his hands together over his belly plates. "And you," he switched his blue gaze to Ironhide, "you knew about this before you came in here."

"Veer told me late last night," Ironhide said.

"And you have kept ... continuous custody of him since that time?" Optimus asked.

"Yes. I asked for his parole, and he gave it willingly." _And we played bondage bots, so it was enforced. Thought I was gonna diiiiie ..._

"Please escort Veer to his quarters, and return here. Veer, you are confined to your quarters until further notice."

* * *

"A nice little problem," Jazz said appreciatively.

Optimus snorted.

Prowl said, quietly as was his wont, "May I make a suggestion?"

"By all means," Optimus said heavily. "Right now, all I can think of is hitting myself in the head with a hammer, because it will feel so good when I stop."

"Always a possibility," Prowl said with a smile. "But Optimus, the recorders are off. If you assign a mild disciplinary action to Veer, without specifying its cause, and take no other notice of his action, along with _not_ giving him the 'don't ever do it again' lecture ..."

Silence stretched out among them. Finally, the Prime's heavy shoulders moved up and down with a released sigh. "Very well. Truly, I can see nothing else to do here. Frankly, we needed what Veer did for us."

"Yes. We do."

No one in the room missed the shift in verb tense.

* * *

That night, late, the door to Veer's quarters slid open.

The scientist, in his recharge berth, said, "I'm confined to quarters. Whoever you are, you shouldn't be here."

Optimus let the door close, and said, "I don't think anyone will say anything to me."

The scientist bolted upright, and said, "Optimus!"

"Come and talk to me for a moment, Veer," the Autobots' Prime said, and gestured to Veer's own work table.

He sat on one side of it; Veer, visibly unsure of himself, hovered. "Will you share some highgrade with me?" the mech asked Optimus, not knowing whether this was appropriate, but unwilling to be inhospitable.

"Yes. Thank you." Optimus folded his hands, and waited while Veer accomplished his duties as host. Then Optimus raised his cube, and said, "To Primus, and the All Spark."

"Primus and the All Spark," said Veer, and they drank.

Optimus, as was his wont, got right to it. "How comfortable were you with hacking Ransack?"

Veer watched his own grey hand put the cube back on the table. "I didn't like the intimate contact with his mind, but that was due to its quality, not the process. I could do it again, with another mech or even with him, if that's what you're asking. I felt no compunction about fetching the information you needed." He made optic contact with the Prime. "If you are asking me if it was the right thing to do, I can't say that it was. But it was a necessity."

Optimus glanced away to commune with the contents of his cup for a moment. "It worries me," he said softly, "that you would see it as wrong, and do it anyway."

Veer flashed him a glance; it still gave Optimus a little bump in his processor to see green eyes, instead of blue.

"It worries me too. But I owe you, and your team, quite a lot," the scientist said eventually. "I can do this thing you disapprove of because you need to have it done, and doing it myself keeps your hands clean."

"It really doesn't."

Veer turned his cube around. "I'd argue with that. I'd say it does until you tell me specifically to do it, or specifically forbid me to do it, and I do it anyway. At that point I become a discipline problem, and I don't know what you'll do about that."

Optimus grunted an assent to Veer's correct assessment of the situation.

The scientist went on, "Or maybe, your reservation is based on your relationship to the All-Spark. If that's so, I can tell you flatly that I do not, under any circumstance, mess with a mech's spark, or with his emotions."

"Can you perceive the spark in a mech? Have you tried?"

"I have tried. I can't. But science has made so much progress since I was sparked that Perceptor can measure things I never knew existed. So I'm unwilling to assume the spark is not there."

"And you make no adjustment to the hacked one's emotions."

The green-eyed mech paused for a moment. "I know what I am not wise enough to do," he said finally. "And if you're curious, messing with Ransack's emotions was a real temptation. He likes to hurt, to kill. I could have put him in touch with his real emotions around that. I almost wish I had."

Optimus had listened with his cube in his hand, elbow on the table, eyes on Veer's. Now he finished his highgrade, and put the cube down. "The cycle you do," he said, rising, "is the cycle I have to forbid you to help us."

Veer gave a quiet smile to Optimus' back as the Prime exited his quarters.

Fifteen kliks later, the lock on Veer's door snapped open.

Veer smiled, and powered down to recharge.

* * *

"The hell are you doing, leaving me here?" said Ransack.

He had been hustled down the ramp of a shuttle by Ironhide on his left and Sideswipe on his right, the incapacitating shackles still on his wrists. Then Ironhide had riveted the chains which linked his wrists to a boulder large and solid enough to keep the Con anchored until he was free of the shackles.

"We arranged a trade," Ironhide said briskly. "Your pals'll be by."

"So first you hack me, now you're just gonna maroon me here?" said Ransack.

If Sideswipe had eyebrows, they would have hit the hairline he also didn't have. The fact that their - guest - had been hacked was news to him, but not, it seemed, to Ironhide, who merely smiled, and made his way back toward the shuttle's ramp.

Ransack glowered. The two Autobots re-entered their shuttle. From a safe distance, they triggered the release on the shackles, and Ransack, freed, fired a blast at them which proved to be ineffective (which they could have told him), then sat down to wait for rescue.

A long, long time.

More than sixty groon, in fact; a human would have called it three days.

Sixty groon is long enough to work up quite a resentment. When restored to the bosom of Lord Megatron, Ransack was quite severely punished for something he did not have the ability to control, the hacking, and Ransack's grievances fastened on Veer.

* * *

Two decacycles later, Ransack all but forgotten, Sideswipe entered the twins' quarters at a dead run.

Sunstreaker, alarmed, looked up from testing the latest batch of highgrade. "What's the matter?" he said.

Sideswipe was pacing the living room. "I went to med bay."

"Why? Are you hurt?"

"No. I wanted to see if I could con Ratchet out of some couplings for the still. But First Aid was there, Ratchet wasn't. So I just asked him for them. While he was getting them, I looked into Ratchet's office. And Ratchet -" Sideswipe's face contracted alarmingly - "Ratchet was on the desk underneath Veer, Veer was underneath Perceptor, Perceptor was underneath Wheeljack, and on top of them all was Ironhide. They were using cable extenders."

Sunstreaker carefully cleaned the hygrometer, recorded the test results, and replaced the tool. Then he looked his brother in the eye, and burst out laughing.

"Cable extenders! I'm going to have to tear out my optics with my bare hands to stop seeing that," Sideswipe said, "and you're _laughing_?"

"Well, I didn't - hee - see it," said Sunstreaker, wiping his hand across his mouth. "I have to imagine it. Oh, Primus." The thought set him off again, and if he hadn't still been on the injured list, Sideswipe would likely have pounded him into the linoleum. As it was, the red mech folded his arms across his chest, and waited it out.

Finally Sunstreaker contained himself. He locked optics with Sideswipe. "You're really bothered about this, aren't you? Is it Veer, or Ratchet? Or have you developed the hots for - " he controlled himself again with an effort - "Ironhide?"

Sideswipe didn't answer him, only glared, and stamped off to the training rings. Maybe he could find someone to beat the slag out of. Failing someone who might actually give him a workout, like, say, Ironhide, any minibot would do ... or anyone with a yellow paint job. Or Perceptor. Or Wheeljack. Even Ratchet.

Maybe Veer?

* * *

"All right," Ratchet said to Sunstreaker. "You're back on the active-duty lists."

"Great," said Sunstreaker, and hopped down off the med berth. He hadn't been limping for a month, and thought it was about slaggin' time.

Relieved of being a combat instructor, Sunstreaker didn't see Veer as often. Sometimes in the morning, their paths crossed; if Sideswipe was along for the ride his brother got to watch pain and longing cross the red mech's face, to be carefully wiped away if Veer happened to glance in his direction.

Sunstreaker began to worry about his brother. He'd never known old Sider's fascination with a mech to outlast a deci-vorn, and here it had been two. He himself had lost interest in Veer, although he wouldn't say no if ... well. But Siders seemed to have it bad.

"Why don't you just go sit with him?" Sunstreaker asked one shift change, when the gray and green mech was alone at his table, spending as much time staring into his energon as drinking it.

"And talk about what?" said Sideswipe. "I have absolutely no science subroutines, except for the distilling. You?"

"Uh. Well, enough to distill and ferment, but that's all."

"It's not enough."

"You don't need to talk to him about science. Say, hi, how are things? Go from there."

"You come with me. You're actually his friend, or anyway his combat instructor. You could ask him how things are, I could, I could, I guess I could start talking to him ... and then you could leave ..."

Sunstreaker eyed his twin coldly. "You aren't going to squeal like a sparkling femme, are you?"

Veer finished his energon and departed, with a cheerful, "Hi Sunny, hi Sides."

Sideswipe dramatically flopped his red helm onto the table, narrowly missing his energon. "I'm never gonna work up the nerve," he mourned. "And even if I do, he'll just turn me down again."

Sunstreaker shook his head. "It's you one-night-stand sorts who get all maudlin and depressing when you finally fall for somebody," he said in disgust, and finished his own energon. Rising, he left his twin in a miasma of love-induced misery.

In Sunstreaker's opinion, Sideswipe needed his aft kicked.

He would get his wish, but in no way he could have wanted.

* * *

The next battle took place a quarter-vorn later. They'd outrun or out maneuvered the Cons, hadn't seen or heard them, hadn't had them on sensor, for longer than that. The planet they were mining energon from had no sentient life, and no animals larger than fair-sized insects.

Blue-green foliage, in various heights and shapes, rioted ceaselessly over every surface available on this new continent. Only bare rock was immune; even then, given whatever kind of moisture life deemed "water" here, moss crept from the shadows, and lichens staked out blue-green turf where light fell on dry rock.

"Great," Sunstreaker said. "More organic gunk."

"Ah, respire that air!" Sideswipe said, patting himself in congratulation on the chestplate. "Don't it make you glad to be alive?" He shrugged his sample bag into place, and checked the settings on his sensor, then looked at his twin and smiled brightly.

Idiot. Sunstreaker squinted into the overbright day, tracked the number of pollen molecules currently entering his air-intake, felt out the possible overheating from infrared rays hitting his helm, and said, "No."

"Yeah, it's great, innit? I'm going north and east," Sideswipe said, and turned to take the downhill track. The exchange had served only to confirm Sunstreaker's opinion that his twin was emotionally overcharged on existence, or some other Pit-spawned thing, and not listening to a word he said.

Sunstreaker sighed heavily, and went southwest with his sensor-log and his sample bag. His way led him into the mountains, and upward. At least climbing didn't scuff his finish; and for the first time in a long time, his leg held up under the effort.

He would not, however, allow this to spoil his lousy mood.

Sunstreaker had sampled and labeled two hundred and fourteen rocks at about six pounds per sample near the end of his shift. He looked at the climb back down to pickup point, and smirked. Sideswipe had taken the downhill (easy) path in the morning, which meant that he would have to

climb with his samples. That meant that he would be late. Sunstreaker could get a few more samples before returning to pick-up. He would be late, but Sides could be depended on to be later.

That decision may have saved his life. When he got to the last hill to descend to pick-up point, he could clearly see his twin, climbing the first of two remaining cliffs between his red self and pick-up point.

He could also clearly see the four Decepticons who now occupied their pickup point, wandering around with sensors in their hands, clearly asking "Who was here? How many of them? When?"

And the kicker, "What can we do that will offline them permanently?"

Sunny sent the information over the twin bond.

_Who?_ Sides sent back.

_Looks like ... one I don't know, Ransack, Soundwave, Wingthing ... gotta go, Soundwave's looking in this direction._

_Distract 'em._

Sunny stood up, bright yellow against the blue-green and reddish backdrop of the cliff behind him, and put a round into the middle of the group, knocking down the Decepticon he didn't know.

_Primus almighty, Sunny, I said, "Distract them," not "Get yourself killed"!_

Wingthing took off, and Soundwave's chest began to open to release his other Cassetticons. At that moment, Air Raid, assigned pickup, came into view over the horizon, saw the situation, accelerated in complete joy, belting toward the group of Cons in a strafing run and blitzing Soundwave with his nosecone torque rifle. He struck the Decepticon repeatedly in the chest, which warped his cassette player's lid.

Sideswipe put two rounds into Wingthing, holing the creature's leathery alae, and Wingthing went ballistic, attempting desperately to get inside Soundwave: but the lid was jammed in its quarter-open position. He couldn't get in. The other Cassetticons couldn't get out.

Soundwave began to backpedal, making desperate "shoo!" motions at the battle around his nipples. If he had nipples. Which he didn't.

Ransack tried a pulse, but although Sunny felt it as a blow to the chest, he was too far away for it to take full effect. And Sides must have commed the base, because quickly, there were three other Autobots a half-mile in front of Sunstreaker: Ironhide, Veer, and Mirage.

Ironhide, mech of few words, put another round into the mech that Sunny had knocked down, who was on his hands and knees. He went back down with that boneless flop that said "offlined."

Soundwave went racing away, pursued by Mirage.

Veer had his rifle at his shoulder, and had just put a round into the fleeing Soundwave, when Ransack recognized him. The Con ran forward, firing a series of blasts that, again, Sunstreaker felt.

Sideswipe, just clearing the last cliff with his jetpack, saw Veer go down and screamed, "No!"

Things began happening in slow motion. Sunstreaker's former student went down, clearly robbed of his motor control, but Ransack continued to fire into the prone body. Sideswipe, reaching the top of the last cliff, shouted again, and Ransack hit the prone Veer again ... the pulse this time was so strong that Sunstreaker couldn't catch his respiration, couldn't feel his fuel pump work.

Sideswipe, flying, swore, and raised his cannon.

Ransack turned to him, and with a single pulse, sent Sideswipe tumbling six hundred feet down the cliff, to land in the crumpled heap Sunstreaker would pick up and race into med bay with.

But that was later. Here and now, Sunstreaker put his shoulder into it, and that was the end of Ransack.

Sunstreaker did not stop in his race toward his twin to do it, but he calculated angle and dispersion and impact velocity, and put one final round through Ransack's chest about where he thought the spark cage lay. Just in case.

* * *

It was Ironhide who picked up Veer, and brought the scientist back to the Ark.

Ratchet and First Aid were both elbow-deep in Sideswipe's problems. Ratchet said to First Aid, "Go hook Veer up to life-support: energon IV, fuel-pump support, respiration mask. Set the monitors to audio and _get back over here_."

Ironhide walked out the door to the lounge, where he thought he would find Sunstreaker; he wasn't wrong. He sat next to the yellow mech.

"He dead?" Sunstreaker said.

"No," said Ironhide, not a cruel mech. "They were workin' on him when I went in with Veer. I don't think Veer made it, though."

Sunstreaker nodded. Ironhide said, "Why don't you go recharge? You know Ratchet'll get you the minute anything changes."

Sunstreaker shrugged. "I can't. It's the twin bond," he said. "He's pretty weak right now, and if I were any further away, he wouldn't be able to feel me anymore, nor I him. I can't -" Sunstreaker swallowed. "I can't leave him - alone."

Ironhide who understood that Sunstreaker's response to being left truly alone, bereft of his bond to his twin, was to go just a tiny wee bit batshit insane, nodded, and rose. Going to the energon dispenser, he punched in his code, brought the resultant cube to Sunstreaker, and left, without saying another word.

Ironhide continued to bring Sunstreaker energon for the next three cycles, which made him late for the daily meeting with Optimus and the rest of the command staff. Prowl, one morning, raised an eyebrow and said, "You got the hots for the yellow one or something?"

Ironhide scowled, and said, "'Course not. I'm just makin' sure the idjit doesn't get himself inta systems failure while we're waitin' ta know if Sides makes it."

A chorus of slow nods, and a silence. Optimus said a few kliks later, "He's always taken care of himself before."

"Yeah. But, see, I was fonda Veer myself, and I don't think he'd thank me for lettin' Sunshine get himself shut down."

Veer had not made it. The life-support had kept a corpse breathing for a while, but when Ratchet opened his chest, the spark-cage was dark and cold.

Nothing to be done. Ratchet gently closed his lover's chestplate, and sent the body to smelt.

Optimus nodded. It made sense, as much as anything to do with the twins made sense. "Is Sunstreaker on the light-duty lists?"

"No. No sense assigning him anything when he's like this. When one of 'em's dinged up bad, I always put the other off duty for at least three days."

Optimus smiled. "Very sensible."

And the meeting, like life itself, went on.

* * *

Five days after he was carried by his brother into the Ark, Sideswipe opened his eyes.

Ratchet smiled down at him from one side. From the other, Sunstreaker had hold of his hand.

The medic said, "Welcome back."

Sideswipe croaked, "Veer?"

Ratchet's face fell into lines of sorrow. "Didn't make it. I'm sorry, Sideswipe."

"Me too." Sideswipe closed his eyes, and both members of his support team began to think he had gone back to sleep. But Sideswipe was merely on convalescent time, and opened his eyes again a few minutes later: pale blue, as befitting the severity of his injuries. "_You_ made it," the red mech said to his brother.

"Without a scratch," Sunstreaker said, which lightened his brother's expression; it took more energy than Sideswipe had at the moment to smile. The black hand cradled in the yellow one went limp, and Sideswipe's optics shuttered. Sunstreaker smiled, and gently put the hand down, stroking his brother's face once.

"Come back whenever you want," Ratchet said, his eyes on the monitors. "He'll be in and out for a few days. If I don't have a rush in triage, stay as long as you want."

"Thanks," said Sunstreaker. "But now I know he's going to be all right, I should tell Ironhide I'm fit for duty."

But Ratchet shook his head. "You aren't fit for duty. You think I don't know you've been doing nothing but sitting in the lounge, dutifully drinking the energon Ironhide brings you, _which_ you wouldn't have gotten for yourself otherwise? No. Put yourself through the washracks, get some energon - and that's doctor's orders, so don't substitute highgrade - and after that it's one deep-recharge cycle for you, boyo. _Then_ you can go back on the duty rosters."

"And you're going to comm 'Hide right now so that I don't disobey you, aren't you?"

Ratchet paused. "No, I'm not," he said. "I'm going to trust you to do what's right, just as Veer would have trusted you to do that."

Sunstreaker snarled, and lunged out of med bay. But Ratchet later found that he had, indeed, done what was right.

* * *

"Next time," Sideswipe said, and tossed back a jolt of highgrade that Ironhide would have respected, "I'm not waiting."

"Waiting?" said Sunny, sampling his own. Taste tests on new batches were never an onerous duty. This was not the best batch they'd ever made, though it was far from the worst, either. But even the worst batch of highgrade they'd ever distilled was still highgrade.

"I ain't waiting," Sideswipe said, holding the glass of dark-blue liquid up to catch the light, "to tell somebody I love them."

Sunstreaker nodded. "Good."


End file.
